‘Doctor Who’ thing of the day: “The Twelve Doctors of Christmas”

Tor.com, the blog of the science fiction book publisher, has embarked upon a holiday-week series paying tribute to our favorite Time Lord, “The Twelve Doctors of Christmas.” It launched yesterday with George Mann on “The First Doctor of Christmas,” which begins with this:

William Hartnell was an alien.

Okay, perhaps not literally (although I admit I have no definitive proof either way), but as an actor creating a role for the very first time, he certainly knew how to portray the otherworldliness that’s now become such a quintessential element of the Doctor’s personality.

The Second Doctor also had a faintly Machiavellian side. He kept both enemies and allies off-balance by pretending to be daft, deliberately leading them to underestimate his abilities. It was sleight-of-hand behavior that disguised an analytical yet ultimately humane persona, all in the service of defeating “things which act against everything we believe in.” By modern terms, he was an enabler, indirect in his methods but not in a manipulative way—not all the time, anyway. He listened to all the good ideas around him and by chivvying and encouraging the oppressed peoples that he encountered, he mobilized them into defeating evil. He was not a leader exactly, more a catalyst for good and Troughton was superb at conveying these different aspects to the character, by turns befuddled, beguiling and brilliant.